slOS-ANGEia> Ttl " ? § i I § 4 ^ I *.. I % ° I O fit T O il i g ^ >\^ ,*OF-CAl!FO% «= s i i g i t- « 0 ^^ 1 I * # J fe O ^ ii 1 5,^ •$> -rv/pui.i.irtiuv-^ WESTWIND SONGS WESTWIND SONGS BY ARTHUR UPSON MINNEAPOLIS EDMUND D.BROOKS MCMII COPYRIGHT 1902 BY EDMUND D. BROOKS. PRINTED FOR EDMUND D. BROOKS B HAHN & HARMON, MINNEAPOLIS, SEPTEMBER, 1902. SOME OF THE POEMS ARE REPRINTED, BY PER- MISSION, FROM THE CRITIC, THE INDE- PENDENT, MUNSEY'S, THE DRAM- ATIC MAGAZINE, THE SMART SET, AND THE CATHO- LIC WORLD. PS 3//3 CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION 1 1 I -HE ART AND SOIL ARLINGTON 17 WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY 18 THE SEQUOIA, "WILLIAM MC KINLEY" 19 BENJAMIN -CONSTANT'S PAINTING OF QUEEN VICTORIA 2O WHEAT ELEVATORS 21 FAILURES 22 THE SOBBING WOMAN 23 EXEMPTION 24 GOLDEN ROD 25 GOSPEL OF THE FIELDS 26 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 2J OCTOBER SONG 28 IN THE WOOD 29 IN OCTOBER 29 THE UNFORGIVING 30 THE TWO HEARTS 3 I CONTENTS "ALL'S WELL" THE OPEN FURROW AN ENVOY FAME IRREVOCABLE TO A SICK ACTOR TO ALGOL IDENTITY THREE SONGS FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE TOWER THE WINDOW LAMP THE RETURN OF THE CRANES INCONSISTENCY SA YONARA, ERADI SAN! TO THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUB- LIC, 1896 THE DEAD STATESMAN, MARCH 13, 1901 RENAN II— EX LIBRIS THE PATHM ASTER, 1301-1901 THOUGHT OF STEVENSON FROM VAEA, MARCH, 1899 vi. CONTENTS ALBA LONGA 58 FOR A FLYLEAF 60 AFTER AN AMATEUR PERFORMANCE OF LES ROMANESQUES 62 IN THE BODLEIAN 63 "EX LIBRIS^ 64 III— ROSELEAVES MAYNIGHT 67 THOU DIDST NOT DIE 67 THE WHITE ROSE 69 OLD GARDENS 71 IN A DREAM 72 SONG AFTER PARTING 73 SINCE WE SAID GOOD-BYE 74 THE TWO PRAYERS 75 CONSUMMATION 76 AFTER ALL 77 THE AMBER LOOP 78 HUGO: RODIN'S BUST, CHAPLAIN'S MEDAL 79 WHEN ROSELEAVES FALL 80 CONTENTS IV -BEYOND THE HILLS CROSS COURSES 83 ALOHA OE! 84 A MEMORY 85 THE DEAD GEYSER 87 A SUNDOWN IN THE YELLOWSTONE 89 IN A WYOMING FOREST 91 MACKINAW 91 THE SONGS THE ENGINES SANG 93 DAWN IN CUMBERLAND 95 THE AVON AND THE THAMES 96 AT WILMCOTE 97 IN HOLYROOD 99 NOCH nicht zu den vollen Sack!* Of noch ein Lied und noch ein Lied! Die Stimmung noch! Ein Mdrchen- schmack, Ein Harfenton, der ruft und flieht! Der sick so leicht auf's Herz gelegt, Wie Daunen, wie der junge Schnee, Bis lets' und unfuhlbar es schldgt Nicht mehr so hart, nicht mehr so weh! Das Lied ein Balsamtropfen kam Vom West-wind hergetragen, fand Die Wunde gleich, und zdrtlich nahm Es fort den pochend wehen Brand. Of noch ein Lied! den Sack nicht zuf Er strotzt noch, singt noch, reiszt und quillt Von Liedern uber! Sing mir Ruh* , In's Herz, wenn's wieder sturmt und schwillt. — Carmen Sylva. Bucarest, March 7, 1901. *Den vollen Sack refers to "the old Portmanteau " in At the Sign oj the Harp. INTRODUCTION >~pHE Westwind flew into my Chamber. •*• On his Wing he bore sweetscented Roseleaves, in his Breath the Song of never- ending Grief, of neverceasing Life; and in his Hand the Harp which every Minstrel touches, and to which each Bard doth add a Chord, a Tune, a Sound of great Eternity to send into Eternity again. The Westwind said: Come, sing with me, for thou hast wept! Come, sing with me, and touch my Harp; for here I bring a Brothersoul to thee, with all the Song in it as Chidder's Song returning when Cen- turies revolved and Centuries came back to sing the same unwavering Song in India as in Hiawatha's Home — the Song of human Tears. It is so old that e'en the Westwind can't remember how oft did Chidder wend his way to Earth in all the thousand times five hundred Years that he returneth but to find WESTWIND SONGS the Same — the burning Hearts, the blood- hot Tears, the Thoughts one Bard leaves to the other Bards when Worlds have gone and other Tongues are spoken — when in other Tongues the Westwind's Song must sweep o'er Oceans and o'er Continents, and say whate'er is understood by all the People and by their Children's Children. It must sing that Death and Life are One, that Souls are One, and that it is eternal Bliss to wander in Mary Arden's Garden where the Virgin was not yet told that she must be the Mother to worldwide Genius — then to shut yourself into a World of Books and Books and Books. You open these with throbbing Heart and trembling Fingers, but to find in them the Thought that filled your Brain, the Echo of the Questions we have asked, the Sob of Pain that we have sobbed in Night's dark, stormy Silence. From Hiawatha's Tent to Shakespeare's Tavern the Westwind blows and scatters scented Roseleaves into my silent Mountain- home, Karpathian's wild Recesses, there to sing the Song eternal, Bard to Bard and INTRODUCTION Soul to Soul; whilst from beyond the Tombs, beyond the Stars, the Answer waveth back in rippling Eddies in the ^olian Harp of Centuries, in ether Oceans of the living Dead. CARMEN STLVA, Elizabeth, Queen of Roumania. SINAIA, AUGUST 13, 1901. I HEART AND SOIL ARLINGTON. "V TO tap of drum nor sound of any horn •*• ^ Shall call them now from this unbat- tled height; No more the picket dreads the traitor night, Nor would the marcher tired delay the morn. Fell some upon the field with victory torn From weakening grasp ; and some before the fight, Doomed by slow fevers or the stray shot's spite ; And some old wounds through quiet years have worn. And all are folded now so peacefully Within her breast whose glory was their dream — From her own bloody fields, from isles extreme, From the long tumult of the land and sea — Where lies the steel Potomac's jewelled stream Like the surrendered sword of Memory. WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY. (The first celebration in the new century.) Tj^ARTH, that hast countless aeons of -^ swift days Spun from thy poles — and like a mote been swirled Fleet years about thy Master Orb — and hurled With all thy starry fellows into space Silent and irresistible on the face Of heavens and of heavens' heavens un- furled - And yet remainest our remembering world , Our kindly home and our familiar place, — Thou dost not fail, sweet, immemorial Earth, To number o'er thy sons that were thy kings ; Chants royal raisest thou among the rings Celestial of old stars for their great worth Whose birth was not as is our common birth, But was foreplanned with elemental things. 18 THE SEQUOIA, "WILLIAM McKINLEY." Christened October zi, 1901. TTE who in dying blessed the peaceful •*- ••• trees That lulled the slow grief of the lapsing year Towards tranquil death, is best remem- bered here. He leaves a name that shall make holier these Huge temple pillars where the organing breeze, Always at requiem, fills the atmosphere, And does to their eternal roof uprear Perpetual music of great memories. Men raised rich temples in the days antique To serve memorial unto virtues wan Beside his. Him no rites shall celebrate Gold-bought, ephemeral as their altar-reek — But, while time is, he here in solemn state Shall hold fit place in Nature's pantheon. BENJAMIN-CONSTANT'S PAINTING OF QUEEN VICTORIA. A PART, with centuries which she doth **• illume, The sunset on her face, around her throne Tapestried legends and heraldic stone, Silent she sits within that gorgeous gloom. Eyes narrowed in far retrospect assume Sorrows of empire. Not her dream alone Occident glories, Orients homage-prone, But more and more of Lucknow and Khar- tum. Along the past with heavy-lidded eyes She looks as one who knows the vision well, A quiet woman whom stately powers compel To splendor and to silent sacrifice — For in the clare-obscure of her deep years What counter of gains hath likewise told her tears ? WHEAT ELEVATORS. /CASTLES, or Titans' houses, or huge ^ fanes Of ancient gods that yet compel men's fear — What powers, what pomps, do these be- token here Looming aloft upon the plough-seamed plains ? Souls of ripe seasons and spirits of sweet rains Flock hither ; and the sinewy, yellow year Heaps their high chambers with Pactolian gear More precious than those golden Lydian grains. Nor fortresses, nor demi-gods' abodes, These are upraised to well-feared deities Whose power is iron, and whose splen- did sway Is undisputed now as when great Rhodes, And Tyre, and Carthage, flourished serv- ing these, Or Joseph stored Egyptian corn away. FAILURES. bear no laurels on their sunless 1 brows, Nor aught within their pale hands as they go ; They look as men accustomed to the slow And level onward course 'neath drooping boughs. Who may these be no trumpet doth arouse, These of the dark processionals of woe, Unpraised, unblamed, but whom sad Acheron's flow Monotonously lulls to leaden drowse ? These are the Failures. Clutched by Cir- cumstance, They were — say not too weak! — too ready prey To their own fear whose fixed Gorgon glance Made them as stone for aught of great essay ; — Or else they nodded when their Master- Chance Wound his one signal, and went on his way. THE SOBBING WOMAN. T HEARD a woman sobbing in the night Against a casement high. And as she cried Our heartless world's deliberate homicide, Our tragic badinage, our mortal slight Of elemental claims, and the dark plight Of the poor I faced there, rigid, open- eyed. Across the unechoing street in silence died Her weary moaning. Whether in her sight Some star appeared to soothe her present pain With memories sweet, or quiet sleep's strong hand Blunted her keen-edged woe, or other fear Came smothering down too close for sob or tear, I could not guess; — some Fate may un- derstand That spins unseen her endless umber skein. EXEMPTION. US would-be wise they mock — those from of old Who down the shuddering centuries with no sound Tread by men evenly as keen souls that hound A slayer. When the days turn strange and cold Who of us up dim, woody byways hold No protest with vague beings ? Thick around What mover among multitudes are not found Close but untouched companions? — In a fold Of a still, midnight, winter hill one time Came they about me ! Fearful as I stood, The moon streamed up before me in a wood, And lit a frozen pool where swayed sublime In world-forgetfulness and young, swift joy, A skater, a wild, singing, thoughtless boy. 24 GOLDEN ROD. "pVOUBTLESS 'twas here we walked but ^^^ yesterday, Seeing not any beauty save the green Of meadows, or, where slipt the brook between, A ribbon of blue and silver ; yet the way Is strange ; in golden paths I seem astray. Do you remember, comrade, to have seen Aught forward in these meadows that should mean A culmination in such fair display ? We noticed not the humble stalks amid The many roadside grasses ; but, it seems, They were preparing this! And, when their dreams Were ripe for doing, they could no more be hid Than golden thoughts that bloom to action when Their hearts make heroes out of common GOSPEL OF THE FIELDS. TTAVE you ever thought, my friend, •*• •*• As daily you toil and plod In the noisy paths of man, How still are the ways of God ? Have you ever paused in the din Of traffic's insistent cry To think of the calm in the cloud, Of the peace in your glimpse of sky ? Go out in the growing fields That quietly yield you meat, And let them rebuke your noise Whose patience is still and sweet. They toil their aeons — and we Who flutter back to their breast, A handful of clamorous clay, Forget their silence is best ! 26 THE WAY OF THE WORLD. A LOOP by something hidden held Though yearning for companion- ship, He toiled; and need, that so compelled, Wrung no word from his lip. Some said he scorned the human part ; Others, that self was all his care; A few saw suffering in his heart, But shrank from entering there. They let him tread his lonely mile And toil apart as best he might, Nor sought a meaning in the smile He wore into the night. He died one day ; and when they found Him smiling in his final rest, An old, immedicable wound They saw within his breast. And those who oft with eye of stone Denied his soul their comfort's bliss Said, " Why, if we had only known ! We had good anodynes for this! " 27 OCTOBER SONG. TF this be October 'tis the maid I've sought •*• so long ! I have traced her through the dying Summer with a song ; I have seen her garments flying Nights in June Down the crimson West beneath the moon! If this be October, then, this dark-eyed, ruddy maid, With the amber in her tresses, All in gold arrayed, Let me sing yet while she dresses The still woods And the scarlet sumach solitudes ! Let me sing, nor think of gloom, the while she crowns her brow With the woodbine reddening Round the yellow bough ! Nothing sorrowful or saddening Brings she here, Only ripe fulfilments of the year ! 28 IN THE WOOD. 1^"O shrill praise nor thanks confessed ^ Clamorous to be understood Troubles here the Sabbath rest Of the solitary wood. (There are ways to live and be Praiseful, thankful, silently.) Flowers fear not their God will blight If they shout no praises loud ; Trees attain their normal height Waving worship to a cloud. (Why should mortals anxiously Reassure the Deity?) Thanks there are in everything Growing down the woodland way, Rendered through developing Fullest life and freest sway. (Let me find how I may be Thankful unobtrusively.) IN OCTOBER. ' I AHE maples their old sumptuous hues re- sume Around the woodland pool's bright glass, and strong 29 WESTWIND SONGS The year's blue incense and recession- song Sweep over me their music and perfume. Dear Earth, that I reproached thee in my gloom I would forget as thou forgot'st; I long To make redress for such a filial wrong And praise thee now for all thy ruddy bloom ! So fond a mother to be used so ill ! Yet this poor heart of mine hath ever been Prey to its own unwarranted alarms, Shall fret, and beg forgiveness so, until Thou fold my thankless body warmly in And draw me back into thy loving arms. THE UNFORGIVING. '"TpHE unforgiving one forgot And sinned, for he was flesh and blood, And deemed it cruel his dearest friend Forgave him not, nor understood. Long pored he o'er his wrongs until From his high window once he saw An outcast whom his arm had thrust Beneath the ban of certain law. 30 • THE TWO HEARTS Him hailed he in a frantic hope As one whose woes he would repair — But far and faint came his reply : "It is beyond thee now. Forbear ! " Then in he called his righteous friend And cried : ' ' Thou wilt not yet forgive ? I pass the curse along to thee, That thou mayst sin — and know — and live! " THE TWO HEARTS. i. SO long my heart hath held its full of joy, Bring on your tears ! I am made strong by these Sweet cordials of blood-stirring memories: Some pain, perhaps, is better, lest they cloy. ' ' II. " So long my heart, the chill abode of pain, Hath been contracted narrowly, I know That now this hot, new joy it drinketh so Must shatter it. O Heart, drink quick again! " "ALL'S WELL." '"T^HIS in a dream at night: A flying •*• start — A waving of white arms — a shroud — a bell- A sudden turning of a trusted heart — Some frantic errand over peak and fell : At dawn you wake: AlV s 'well! This in a life: The strain for what is not, A snatching at the sunbeam in your cell — The hope that fades — the sacrifice forgot — The frozen smile — the chime that dies a knell : At dawn you wake: AlV s well! THE OPEN FURROW. TT rains to-day ; the dark clouds lend All earth deep sorrow, And heavy blasts of grief descend On field and new-turned furrow, Which wait the springing seed to take Upon the sunny morrow. 32 AN ENVOY It rains to-day; the soul from gloom One light doth borrow : Near blessings through the mists uploom Above the open furrow, And welcome give the healthful seed Sown there by holy sorrow. It rains today ; but in the dark The new-turned furrow Doth wait the song which meadow-lark From heaven above shall borrow With which to hail the waving grain That springs upon the morrow. AN ENVOY ' I AHERE is a River thou and I in storm Or in the purple windy dusk have watched; And thou, when the quick surface of the stream Fled backward from his course before that breath, Hast said, "Oh, see the River flowing up ! " For thus it seemed. And then thine eyes have smiled. O Mother, there's a river floweth up — A sort of little tributary stream 33 WESTWIND SONGS To the great seas — where clouds look and the mom, Where goes the wind, and manyawindhathgone. That, Mother, is the river of my song Whose running is to thee, though mostly seem Those waters for another bourne are bound And there be quiet moments when all airs Suspend, and strong the current is revealed, And sudden to each other's eyes we turn. FAME. TN quiet, day by day, Does worth to greatness win its upward way. Alone to him who toiled The arduous steps undaunted and unspoiled *Tis granted to emerge Upon the envied goal's exalted verge. Unbidden then comes Fame, An issue of the journey, not its aim. 34 IRREVOCABLE. /^ANT the smiling ocean waft ^^ Into port again Yesternight's storm-shattered craft? — Is all smiling vain ? Can the lips once proved untrue Ever quite recall Old-time trust to hearts that knew Once their truth as all ? TO A SICK ACTOR. December, 1899. WITHOUT the northwind, sad and stern, How could we love of fireside learn ? The sun would shine unthanked if we Had never known inclemency. Thus come the clouds to show how true A nation's friendship shines for you. ' ' O UCH light was his, ' ' so may she drea ^ ing say TO ALGOL. " 'earri- ng say In thought of one beneath thy changeful glow. " Such light was his when in the long ago 35 WESTWIND SONGS He used to fret the night out with his lay Half-finished, and, forestalling the faint day, Creep from his couch while slipt the wan moon low For some poetic glimmer, sweet and slow O'er which he hovered till the East was gray. Such light was his — and then he used to wait Long nights in darkness at the very gate Against whose far side beat the utmost light, Till, wearied straining at those bars in vain, He fell on dreams of light that went again To leave him starting in the empty night. ' ' IDENTITY. '"pRUST me ; I must be myself. •^ And, if thou'rt the friend I thought thee, All thy doubts of me will rest By the open heart I brought thee, Unconfessed. Trust me ; thou shalt be thyself. In no deed wherein thou movest Shall a curious question pry. — And thou 'It thank me if thou lovest As do I. 36 THREE SONGS FROM THE LIGHT- HOUSE TOWER. (Ontario.) T SAW him climb the lighthouse tower; The sea was singing of the day, The East was pink with promises, And all the West was sullen gray. He gazed to East and he gazed to West, (And oh, there was a sea light-blown!) He strained his eyes to dim sky-line Then pressed my hand within his own: SONG. The kindly act, the worthy strife, Are infinitesimals upward bent, The slow, sure growth of a noble life Whose God will reckon each incre- ment. Try and try and try: What's the Shadow I'm pursuing? After all that's said and done, Something better waits my doing. Be it at night when vaulted arch Rang with the music of our feast, Be it when, scattering her faint stars, The silver Morning rode the East ; 37 WESTWIND SONGS With him upon the lighthouse tower, Or pink or gray or black the sky, I only heard the songs he sang, I saw alone his friendly eye. SONG. There's tender thought to pay you back For all the charities you lack; There's a kind word to show you how You might have made a friend but now . I build my house and you build yours: The winds and rains shall try us all— ' Tis its own timber that secures Each from its own downjall. I cannot see the lighthouse tower For all the misty waste of years Since ships have come and ships have gone Across Ontarios of tears ; But as I look I see his hand As though he waved from fields of air, And feel the light wind of the sea Waft me the songs he sings up there. THE WINDOW LAMP SONG. Headlands three Guard the sea, Faith, Hope, Charity: Faith is firm against the storm; Hope is higher than its spray; Love, in bending to its arm, Turns it pacified away. THE WINDOW LAMP. (For a Monotype.) ^1 AHE tremor of a transient light Came softly through the yieldingshade, And startled into guilty flight The phantoms loneliness had made. This forest he had groped in long, Not without heart, but all alone; And now his soul sent forth a song — For once he such a light had known. "Somewhere 'tis Home, it seems!" he said ; ' ' Though strange am I in all this night ; ' ' And then he blessed the hand that sped The tremor of that transient light. 39 THE RETURN OF THE CRANES. Crane Island. \\ 7HEN Spring's first tender signals * * come The crane flock northward flies, And their ancestral island home Echoes again their cries. Their long flight falters not nor rests Till weary pinions fold Where round these lofty elmbough crests Fair waters sweep their gold. And walking once where evening lay Along this island wood, I found, slow dying with the day, One of that brotherhood. The fingers of the gentle tide Light touched him where he fell Secure upon the beachy side The young flock loves so well. I stroked him and he lay as tame As any dying thing, While the dull westward sunset flame Lit his long-broken wing. 40 INCONSISTENCY Above, wide-circling in the air, His flock grieved not for one ; And he, alone, lay quiet there, His journey bravely done. INCONSISTENCY, a Poet praised a Bird ^^ That his praises overheard. Thought the Bird, "Oh, rare delight! I will sing to him all night! " Long he sang, and somewhat shrill, On the Poet's window-sill. Till the Bard, grown wroth and grim, Made a Silent Bird of him. But next day this Poet signed Sixteen sonnets ere he dined, Having heard that someone is Quoting certain lines of his. SAY ON AX A, BRADI SAN! OATONARA, Eradi San! ^ Not for Ind, nor glad Nippon, Trim I any sail ; yet wind Vast horizon-breadths behind Ways we friends have wandered late To your buddhas consecrate. Life, that for the moment showed Glimpses of a common road, Now dissevers us ; you turn Where the blinding glaciers burn, And along perpetual ice Skirt a snowy paradise. Your peaks of rime and mountain walls In sublime recessionals, And, where chasm cedars lean, All my River's mirror-green — Scenes that many dawns evolve Many dusks shall yet dissolve Ere for us the torri shine Ruddy welcome to your shrine, Or the melancholy gong, Sounding, bear our souls along. But our day shall come anon With "Ohayo, Eradi San/" 42 SATONARA, ERADI SAN! Now I laze amongst the weeds Where the big bee growls and feeds ; I the hammock's easy state Assiduously cultivate, And all night in doze and dream Hear the wind along the stream. Moves the River, wide and brown, Far from village, far from town, Through the oak wood's singing shades, Past the painted palisades Where the purply bergamot And yarrow grace my tenting-spot. Here the goldfinch flashes by, . And the rust-red butterfly Tacks unsteady into port — Some weed-lady's crimson court; Green the ironwood tassels stir Round the jewel tanager. River, nights all moon-inlaid, Hath bright rugs of foreign braid, Of strange glistenings and glooms, Stuffs from out the breezes' looms; Rock-dyed in their gauzy thread All day long they spread and spread. 43 WESTWIND SONGS There the shadow merchantmen Moor to orient docks again ; As in some Burmese bazaar Here the filmy fabrics are ; Bales strange-lettered here lie sunned On the Nagasaki bund. Sobs my tender mourning-dove Through a cryptomeria grove, While the bunting's deep blue wings Seem fair Nikko blossomings, And his tinkling notes, a bell By some shrined and sacred well. Spell o' the East! It glows and grows Like a splendid burning rose Round the heart you set it in ! All the clouds of distance thin When its mystic, odorous sleep Draws my soul within its deep! Distance is no longer. These Stars that gem the filigrees Of the oakbough, and the bright Tent-roof-sifted moon-delight, They your Persian lamp, and fields Are of your loved Jeypore shields. 44 GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC For the good, the brave, the kind, Ships a fair home-breeze shall find : Yours again of nights to look In some old familiar book By your own lamp ; I may stray, Undeserving, far away. And if there we meet not more, Make for the Remembered Shore : Thence I, or my ghost, shall hail Joyfully your whitening sail And, with soft airs of Nippon, Sigh, " Ohayo, Bradi San/" LOWER PALISADES, RED CEDAR RIVER. TO THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC National Encampment, 1896. T ONG has the cannon's angry mouth *—* been mute, Muffled with garlands tearful Freedom twines 45 WESTWIND SONGS For brave hearts stilled that bounded to re- fute The slander on her shrines. Victorious banners that through blackened air Went quivering in the war's hot agony, Thrice sacred in their tatters and thrice fair, We furl full reverently: Long cold is many a hand that held them high To shot and shell and battle's withering breath ; Speaks many a voice that woke the rallying cry Dumb eloquence of death. But patriot thrill and proud remembrance start Not only at these trophies of long truce ; Not only here the quick, responsive heart Unstops its tear-brimmed cruse. Something to lift us from the sordid aim Goes with you heroes of the outlived strife; 46 GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC With you the present sweeps past heights of fame And soars to newer life. To grasp the hands that, braving scorch and scar, Broke slavery's chain to mend the bond of state, That plunged into the seething pit of war To grip our Country's fate; To feel the pulse of Victory down the street In measured cadence of the drum's quick roll, The martial music thrilling high and sweet Into the echoing soul : To catch such flash from memory-kindled eyes As met Death's eager face unflinchingly When out beneath gray, hope-forsaken skies You charged for Liberty; To hail you here — the Nation's heart out- pours Warm welcomes on your long triumphal way; 47 WESTWIND SONGS We wreathe your laurels on our city doors, And fling them wide to-day. Here in a fresh Republic, rich and new, Peace rests her hand in Victory's fur- rowed palm — A hand unscarred, but no less strong and true Through years of blood-bought calm. You sentries of her rights in doubt and dread, The strong Republic's bounty she assures: Her hearths your campfires for the years ahead, Her hearts forever yours. w THE DEAD STATESMAN March 13, igoi. HAT of the man? His character was hewn From patriot quarries on the height of seers ; With honors was his way to honors strewn And calm indorsements of the critic years. 48 THE DEAD STATESMAN Who says "no crisis wrought his fiber's test? " Why, from of old the exacting gods asked not More proof of worth in heroes after-blessed Than that they kept their love of duty hot! What, then, are ' 'crises? ' They are action- peaks, Decision's moments towering into light ; But what are they of which man never speaks That rise by thousands just beneath our sight? He knew the stress of state, the slow appeal Of righteous aims, the thankless, unseen tasks, Untiring service to the widest weal And, save the glory, all a hero asks. What of the silence? This must be for all. But there's a grandeur in some silences; And while the hush and mist around us fall Our hearts are lifted for such life as his. 49 WESTWIND SONGS Up to such silence who would not be keen To struggle finely and at length with- draw- Henceforth in statutes wise to walk unseen, And be a presence in the juster law! RENAN (On a flyleaf of Madame Darmesteter's "Life.") /^VNCE in Montmartre I looked through ^-^ the door of his tomb : Outside lay the morning ; within, dull twi- light and dust. I look in his Soul, round about me the mist and the gloom : Within, serene, beams the light of the Pure and the Just ! II EX LIBRIS THE PATHMASTER. 1301—1901. "C^RE Florence sowed that seed of woe •^ Which yet her vain remorse doth reap The harvest of, and scorned to keep Her Dante in her halls, (for so It is beyond the Apennines He sleeps where foreign Summer shines;) 'Tis said, before the factious Guelf Grew such a prodigal of spleen His quarrel with the Ghibelline Had bred black schism in himself, — That Alighieri, wise and good, Among the priors of Florence stood. And him a chief the city made Of those whose strict official cares Should be in lanes and thoroughfares To see the skilless builder stayed, To beautify the paths unclean, And render broad the straight and mean. And further we this word do hold From such scant fact as faintly stirs From quills of chary chroniclers, Those self unconscious scribes of old, — Unto that end his earnest prime Bent Dante through the lotted time. 53 WESTWIND SONGS From this and like old writ we deem That somewhere under palace eaves The bard divine some relic leaves Of widened ways: scarce more than dream. — Had Florence not more weighty heeds Than setting down a Dante's deeds? What street of all thy ancient streets, Thou Lily of the Arno, say, Dost thou allure men down to-day Where legend not that name repeats? What road but some old memories tell Of walls that serve it sentinel? One road he paved Cthe records show) "So that unlet at their desires The commons may approach the priors; " Which was, men said, San Procolo. But what saith one of subtler wit? Far other Road than this was it ! O thou fair Dreamer of the Dead, When Night with swift remembering- pangs Her pale gold lamp above thee hangs, And round thy windless squares is tread Of phantom feet,— oh, whisper low Which way his measured footsteps go. 54 THE PATHMASTER For, maybe, at such magic hour One might slip forth some quiet way While sleeps the body, to the gray, Cold flagstone, thence by font and tower, Till whisper saith: The Road was this And passed the house of Beatrice. Pale Singer of the Song Divine Who toiled and dreamt and sang apart, Unto these latter days thy heart Is better known ; such song as thine And the stern mark upon thy brow, Then dark, are not all riddle now. Six centuries, a hard, steep maze, The world hath climbed since thou in shade To Paradise thy soul-path laid Through heart-ache and long, bitter days; Till now, from loftier plane, it turns Unto thy lore and, wondering, learns Thy Road was that severer Love Outwidening to the place of Law Whereto we commons may withdraw And prove our right to things above, — And over which, as to thy friends, Calm Beatrice her hand extends. 55 THOUGHT OF STEVENSON. TTIGH and alone I stood on Gallon Hill Above the scene that was so dear to him Whose exile dreams of it made exile dim. October wooed the folded valleys till In mist they blurred, even as our eyes upfill Under a too sweet memory; spires did swim, And gables rust-red, on the gray sea's brim — But on these heights the air was soft and still. Yet not all still: an alien breeze did turn Here as from bournes in aromatic seas, As round old shrines a new-freed soul might yearn With incense to his earthly memories. And then this thought: Mist, exile, search- ing pain, But the brave soul is free, is home again! FROM VAEA. March, 1899. One of the inscriptions on Stevenson's tomb on Mount Vaea is a translation of Ruth i, 16-17. A GAIN from out the Southern Seas We hear their bawling batteries; Again where shift the pleasant airs The fouling breath of cannon fares, And leaves to girdle Upolu A long, red stain upon the blue. Roused from their tender reveries The Vailima gardens wring With red rose-mallows quivering — But yonder, up Vaea's stairs, Unfooted by a battle-thought, The godless noises find surcease, And Tusitala, undistraught, Remains in peace, remains in peace. Down Summer seas they blare and blot And hurtle wide their Christian shot Among the villaged cocoa-palms, A sudden wealth of leaden alms — Reason, forsooth, a native king Waxed weary of their bullying. 57 WESTWIND SONGS But there in his lone mountain spot He who loved well the island race In silence turns away his face, Albe his voice from those far calms Unto the Northern conscience cries: "Indeed no kith of mine be these Who hold sweet life so light a prize- Leave us in peace, leave us in peace! " I ALBA LONGA. HAVE read in tales of the heroes That lived in the days of eld, Of that city built in Latium By the Alban Mount upheld, Along the white crest winding, Buttressed and citadeled. I have heard how her long walls guarded The Tiber's vale afar, How they gleamed through years of quiet, And glowed in the years of war; I have dreamt how the pale moon lit them To the exiled Numitor. 58 ALBA LONGA I can close my eyes and behold it, That city so long and white, With her columned temple rising Under the star-ceiled night, And the vestal Rhea flitting Within by the pallid light. And oh, for some chord of music, And oh, for the voice divine, To echo softly and sweetly Across this dream of mine, While Rhea's white robes flutter By Vesta's spotless shrine! Some nights when the plangent murmurs Of rivers of wind go by, I am one with their undulations, Their eddy and sweep and sigh: We mingle and flow together Under the storm-filled sky. And then we are chilled with sorrow As we flow and flow and flow Back through the channels of ages To the sources of ancient woe, Back in the Tiber valley Those long white hills below. 59 WESTWIND SONGS A light in the temple of Vesta Around the shrine was shed; And oh, but it leaped and flickered To one great orb o'erhead: The flame of Rhea was golden, But the flame of Mars was red. A sigh, a sigh in the nightwind For the awful shields that gleam Of a Vestal's sons turned warriors Beside the Tiber stream: — So my purple Rome has swallowed The Long White City of dream! FOR A FLYLEAF Of Ruskin's " Roadside Songs of Tuscany." OINCE the hearth-smoke of the world ^ First into the azure curled, Men have hummed them by the fire, Women crooned their sweet desire In low, minor melodies, — Just such little songs as these. Simple words but towering love, Each-day feelings speaking of; And the heart that beats within 60 FOR A FLYLEAF Breast where suffering has been Will know its own and quickly seize Just such little songs as these. When the improvising wind Flutes across the cottage blind With a music new, but old, It will always pause to hold Some sweet note — at mother-knees Children singing songs like these. Such a song claims little wit For anyone can fathom it; But 'twill cling to lips that sing Like a kiss of some far Spring Gotten when your fancy-breeze Sang to you such songs as these. Out of hearts that feel the pain, Knowing it will heal again; Out of souls that do not care What the form be if so there Linger something that will ease — Come such simple songs as these. 61 MOTHERS AND SISTERS. MOTHERS and sisters whom no sacri- fice Dismays, nor whom your long, laborious hours Do anywise appall, ye are the powers By whom the swift are girded for the prize They reach in the light of your believing eyes. Ye are the hidden oil the shrine devours; Soil of the garden whence the great rose flowers; The silent force that bids a star arise. Ye ask of men nor honor, nor regre£, Nor memory, save one's whose love is all. Renouncement ? Living daily the divine ! Effacement ? Still the world your names shall call: Monica was the mother of Augustine; Pascal had Jacqueline; Renan, Henriette ! AFTER AN AMATEUR PERFORM- ANCE OF LES ROMANESQUES. TT was all just a play — •*• They will both tell you so! We believe what they say: 62 IN THE BODLEIAN " It was all just a play." Still, "Sylvette' ' — ' ' Percinet " — Wherever they go. Was it all just a play? They will both tell you so ! IN THE BODLEIAN. AND am I heir to all this lore •^^ Of the great men gone before — To the infinite, fair renown That the generous years hand down? Youngest son, yet held to be Worthy such a legacy? Nay, scarce worthy. Yet few fears Chide the charitable years By whose terms their whole estate Doth widen as we dissipate: I inherit but so far As my powers of spending are. All is freely left me, yet Must I toil for all I get, Living happier for this Condition of the benefice: Rich but thrifty, as I were A millionaire day-laborer. 63 "EX LIBRIS." TN an old book at even as I read •*• Fast fading words adown my shadowy page, I crossed a tale of how, in other age At Arqua, with his books around him, sped The word to Petrarch; and with noble head Bowed gently o'er his volume, that sweet sage To Silence paid his willing seigniorage. And they who found him whispered, " He is dead ! " Thus timely from old comradeships would I To Silence also rise. Let there be night, Stillness and only these staid watchers by, And no light shine save my low study light- Lest of his kind intent some human cry Interpret not the Messenger aright. 64 Ill ROSELEAVES MAYNIGHT. A GAIN my slender thorn is white •**• And as of old its odor blows Up through the lit and lovely night To me within my garden close. In unforgotten, holy Mays, All on a night that else was still, Thou sangest up the country ways And borest me bloom from yonder hill. Now, as in other Springs, I wait For thy familiar voice — in vain; The moon and I have listened late For that remembered music-strain. Of song and thee I dream — and round My rest the night-bird's note is borne; And here, a slim girl blossom-crowned, Arms wide to me, the bridal thorn! THOU DIDST NOT DIE. 'TpHOU didst not die when thou didst -^ leave my vision, Nor art thou distant now thy face is gone; Thou hast not fled to some dim, trans-Ely- sian, Uncalled-from shore, where'er thy form be flown. 6? WESTWIND SONGS Thou whom the days continually gave pleasure, Whom the warm nights in happiness shut round, Thou seekest not for any blossoms fresher In strange, bright fields, than in our own were found. Thou hast not looked to other constellations, Being unwearied with thine own and mine; Thou hast not sought new, heavenly oc- casions; Here and by me the Universe is thine. Thou art so near these nights no more seem sober, Nor thy loved flowers sad around me here, Than when we watched together in October The eye of Taurus flaming low and clear; Than when we made the woodland echo startle With long halloos in the sweet Autumn air; Or laughed to see the vistaed brooklet dartle, Or strung a harp with strings of maiden- hair. 68 THE WHITE ROSE Nay, them art by me in a subtler presence That makes my world less earth and more a star; For in my soul thou hast poured acquiescence From interstellar wells of rest afar. And I grow wise in the wide ways of heaven With thee beside me to explain all things — With thee, once mine, still mine! to whom 'tis given To sweep the stars, yet folding here thy wings. Thou on long eves, interpreted of roses, Dost teach me utter lore; and perfume- shod Each meaning comes, and calmly fair un- closes As sweet girls' spirits at the feet of God. THE WHITE ROSE. T>Y a pleasant garden walk once there grew a slender stalk Where at eve a pair of sweethearts used to love to dream and talk; 69 WESTWIND SONGS It was they who in the Maytime, in the flush of Maytime fair, Brought the rose and set it there. And the Lover said, " 'Twill be as a pledge 'twixt thee and me, For the first sweet bloom upon it shall be consecrate to thee — Shall be thine to keep forever, and upon its petals white Shall our solemn troth be plight!" And the bud that heard him speak, from that slender stalk and weak Nourishment took heed to gather, favoring foods began to seek. When each night the lovers marked it, how its little leaves did swell, They would say, "The Rose doth well!" Bright and busy days were those for the eager, swelling Rose, Fairest petals ever whitened in a lover's garden close! Thought the bud, "Ah, soon the hour, soon the drooping on her breast, Next her heart to be at rest!" 70 OLD GARDENS One still hour of reddening sun when the dew-time was begun Came the Lover to the blossom — came the Lover, only one. And strange dews fell silently as he took the Rose full-blown, Took, and bore it off alone. In a still and sacred gloom, in a hushed and dim-lit room, Did he leave his plighted flower with its consecrated bloom, Hers to keep forever shielded from the shattering of the blast. And the White Rose sighed, "At last!" OLD GARDENS. A I^HE white rose tree that spent its musk For lovers' sweeter praise, The stately walks we sought at dusk, Have missed thee many days. Again, with once-familiar feet, I tread the old parterre — But, ah, its bloom is now less sweet Than when thy face was there. 71 WESTWIND SONGS I hear the birds of evening call; I take the wild perfume; I pluck a rose— to let it fall And perish in the gloom. IN A DREAM. T AST night I dreamed God let you *~* come again To the old place we loved so long ago; And all my burning lips could utter then Was, "Love, I did not know! I did not know! " I dreamed you were as sweetly fragile-fair As in the days when you began to fade — As in those days when walking with you there I wondered that you often were afraid. There was the same appeal of widened eyes, The flutter of the hand within my arm ; — And now I was not strange to this surprise, But sought to clasp you from the shad- owed harm. 72 SONG AFTER PARTING And in your eyes reproach, filmed o'er by love, And softened by the tender, absent years, Renewed the heartbreak I am subject of, And flooded all the sources of old tears. It seemed not you that spoke, yet 'twas your voice; Still-lipped, you seemed to make unwill- ing moan As if the outer powers had left no choice But you must answer, "Ay, but should have known ! " SONG AFTER PARTING. IT is over. Like sweet dreams Let it be, Or a Summer-haunted stream's Melody. Even so thy passing seems Unto me. But the dream most dear and bright May live yet, Fading not along the night In regret — 73 WESTWIND SONGS While the heart love faileth quite Must forget ! And the river sings and flows Ever on, Born, like love, of mountain snows And the sun — While thy love, unlike it, goes And is gone! SINCE WE SAID GOOD-BYE. ly^ISSED we not and said good-bye ? Then why wilt thou haunt me thus With thine eyes in all my dreams Making night-time luminous ? Art thou haunted, dear, as I Since we kissed and said good-bye ? Had we kissed not, parting so, This were only just in thee; Had we kissed and said no word Thou hadst right to torture me; But thou knowest, well as I, First we kissed, then said good-bye! 74 THE TWO PRAYERS That good-byes may last too long — Is it this thine eyes would tell ? Or do they reproaching plead Kisses do not last so well ? Art thou lonelier than I Since we kissed and said good-bye ? THE TWO PRAYERS. A T night one leaned from earth's dim ** edge, (Oh, but he seemed alone! ) And looked down, down, below his ledge Where a calm planet shone. Some pain — a common thing — had bent His looks out over heaven ; The sorrow of a day ill-spent, The still remorse of even In which (oh, quite in vain!) he yearned Unto the lustrous star That with more steadfast beauties burned Than in the earthlights are. He flashed a prayer from his far height, And down the dark blue well 75 WESTWIND SONGS Where lone and splendid swam that light He watched it as it fell. Out far he strained to mark its course — And sudden was aware That upward from such golden source A prayer had crossed his prayer ! His on serenely to its goal Had fluttered like a flame; Yet gazed he still with wondering soul: The two prayers were the same. CONSUMMATION. A S the clear fountain sparkles on the hill ^*- In some flowered basin at a cool, sweet height, Yet comes from we guess not what gal- leried night, Devious, untraced, and altogether ill, — So doth my love from other days distil, Through channels occult groping up to light, Deeming all labors past as thrice requite If once thou stoop thy hollowed hand to fill. Clear eyes that bend upon my love thou hast; 76 AFTER ALL I would have them thereon meet no dismay: — I thank the chastenings of that cryptic past Where those soiled waters crept their stains away, — Those slandered days whose riddle now, at last, Grows plain before this fair and ultimate day. AFTER ALL. WHEN, after all, you come to Love and lay Your weary hands within his hands and say, "Love, thou art best!" how can you know that then He will not laugh and turn his face away ? When, after many conflicts, your proud heart, Seamed with old scars, would take Love's quiet part — Ah, to make fair that place for him again Which of all Love's physicians has the art ? 77 THE AMBER LOOP. Amber was believed by the ancients to be the crystal- lized tears of wood nymphs. T TE found it in a quaint bazaar, This amber for her auburn hair, And pictured to himself afar Its beauty coiling there. He saw its shining length uptwist Through visions of her lovelit face, And let it nestle round his wrist In delicate embrace. An exquisite proportioning, From end to end of every strand, He noticed as the yellow thing Slipt idly through his hand. "Five men no fewer toilsome years It took to sort the stringful, sir! " He bore it off to leave in tears The doting jeweller. As with the gems he, smiling, went Down that strange city's winding street, The odor of the Orient Rose from them, pungent-sweet — 73 HUGO A scent so dear to some lost day, So consecrated to the past, That ere he knew it tears broke way And hotly held him fast. And were these not wrought out in tears, By hands that trembled in their place Through long and maybe loveless years To consummate this grace ? And will she, too, recall it so, When, after many days, they greet — Their half-forgotten, common woe, Heart-filling, pungent-sweet ? HUGO: RODIN'S BUST, CHAP- LAIN'S MEDAL. (ForC. M. A., in Paris, who sent me the Centenary Medal, 1902.) "DOTH Hugo: that, mid-struggle, ti- •^ tanic in triumph-strain; This, poised, secure, like a god who looks down on the toils of the plain ! 79 WHEN ROSELEAVES FALL. seleaves fall in evenings cold To mingle with their mother mold, Look to it lest thy heart be set To seek strange blossoms and forget Thy roses and their sway of old ! Run not to lesser blooms ! nor fold Unto thy heart the creed those hold Who stand like Stoics by and let Their roseleaves fall ! But gather them as precious gold; Rich-spiced, high-placed and orient-bowled, They shall be Summer to thee yet. What though they fade and thou regret, Thou canst make theirs a boon untold When roseleaves fall. 80 IV BEYOND THE HILLS CROSS COURSES. "\X7HERE Summer skies glint silver-blue ^ * The dark, cliff-clinging larches through, Where foam and spray and sounding swell Commingle from the inland seas In solemn, heart-reechoed keys Up piney crest and cedar dell, Five souls whose love went out to thee, Dim Spirit of lost Arcady, Whose hopes breathed in the balm of prayer From benedictions of the air — Five souls crossed courses from far seas And thrilled to sudden sympathies. They parted. The continuous sea Made of it but a memory. One feels the pulse of freedom throb In surges on the Pilgrim shore ; One hears the Mississippi sob The sorrows of forgotten lore; One touches Ocean's healing hems Below the busy tide of Thames; One, by the amber Baltic, lights A Northland home with love's pure gleam; 83 WESTWIND SONGS And one, ah, one, upon the Heights Is safe across the shadowed stream. Five friends, a dash of jewelled spray, A twilight shadow drifted down Across the ledge's larchen crown; Farewells, and through the hidden way Love pilots toward an unseen beach Each to the haven best for each. ALOHA OE! (To W. S. W.) "DEHOLD we clasp our sundered hands •*-^ Across the kind and faithful deep, You on the gold Hawaiian sands, I here among the cows and sheep. I thanked the waters that so well Had borne you to the Island friend, And thank them thrice for every swell That bears me back the words you send. Strange currents, the untamable air Between us moving, and the rhyme Of epic oceans wax and wear; And lightly slip the feet of Time. 84 A MEMORY And you will tread the Island Hills, And you will learn the Island grace, Before your gift of daffodils Shrivels in my Benares vase. Only come back and I'll be strong With wine of hope and country cheer; Still begging for another song And laughing just to see you near! WOODEND FARM. A MEMORY. TN the hush of holy twilight •^ A trembling sea of red; A purple cloud dipped lakeward Where the dead sun's pall is spread, And a gray-tiled walk for shadows Leading to years long dead. I lean on the arched palings Of a bridge in a city grand: There are turrets of chastest silver Arising on every hand, And such domes of fire-tipped crystal As would dazzle in fairyland. 85 WESTWIND SONGS Dark gondolas go sweeping On burning ponds below, With songs of old Venezia In tender notes and low; Round them in ceaseless rhythm The red waves come and go. Now they drift in the torchlight, And under a canopy Fair eyes look out in wonder At the glory they may see, And a fairy hand is tapping To the gondoliere's glee. Now they drift into the shadow And the cantilena's notes Rise and fall in measure With the dipping of the boats, Till vague in the melting distance Their pensive cadence floats. It is wafted into the chambers Of my dearest memory, There to bide and make me music When the world weighs heavily, And to echo its simple sweetness To all eternity. 86 THE DEAD GEYSER. T SAT in the forest at sundown, On the trunk of a fallen tree; There were calm, low lights to westward, But shadows over me, And the gold beneath the branches Was wonderful to see. Before me lay a circle In the glow of the fading sky, The rim of an outworn geyser That brothered an age gone by, With roots grown down in its fissures As thick as a good man's thigh. A hemlock, rough and distorted, Stood at the circle's head, And beneath it were ivy and yarrow And little gold daisies spread, Like such as they loop in the Springtime To cover the noble dead. I mused on the buried giant That, hundred of years before, Up through the mossgrown crater From his narrow dungeon tore — And half in a dream I listened To catch his approaching roar. 8? WESTWIND SONGS Then up in the evening silence, And up in the westward light, And over the widening shadow, - He seemed to take his flight, Alone in the awesome stillness, So solemn and weird and white. A chipmunk peeped from his burrow Where the white dead pine-stem lay; A night-hawk rose from his tree-tip To spiral the muffling gray; And the wandering breath of Summer Seemed all at once taken away. With never a plash nor a murmur The beautiful spectre stood, Gold-vested, scarlet-mitred Of fires behind the wood, And his white hand pointing heavenward In earth's dim solitude. A catbird called through the gloaming And shook the woodland deep; The folded gentian quivered In the quiet of her sleep, And my heart that had been so tranquil Came up with a sudden leap. A SUNDOWN The molten brass in the tree-boles Had dwindled to a span; So I rose with great thoughts crowding In solemn caravan, And crept through the shade, a shadow, Who had set me down a man. A SUNDOWN IN THE YELLOW- STONE. /^"LEAR-CUT against a windswept sky, ^^ beneath the fading day, The long, low ridges calmly lie, a cameo in gray : 'Tis night at home, and here am I a thou- sand miles away. I watch through gray-green hyaline the gey- ser-vapors' flight — Stray underworldlings made divine by con- tact with the light, Like souls fresh-freed from earth's confine and bound for realms more bright. 89 WESTWIND SONGS The sun, from out his gilded car, looks back along the West ; His red steeds brush the evening star ath- wart the mountain crest, And bring me messages afar from one I love the best. A hundred cloudlets swim beside, translu- cent silver through, And others mauve and crimson stride adovvn the pallid blue ; And freighted well I know they ride with tender thoughts from you. But all the light that e'er has lain before the sunset throne, And all the wings of vermeil stain through golden portals flown, Would leave me with the after-pain of won- dering alone, If, when, beyond the lowest hill the red has all turned gray, And my lone heart has ceased to fill with wealth of dying day, I paused to think that you are still a thou- sand miles away. 90 IN A WYOMING FOREST. "VTOW it is twilight, and a yellow fire * ^ Streaks through the narrow aisles of singing pines. Low the old sexton, Night, lets down his blinds, Leaving me in his sanctuary choir To hear my own heart inwardly aspire, Chanting with all the trees the same sweet lines ; While, overhead, one bent cloud dimly shines Like an archangel pleading my desire. Sunset across the level woodland floor, And calm within the forest of my soul; A softer light I had not known before Now radiates from my beclouded goal, And in a tranquil glory through the door Of the dun future seems to rise and roll. MACKINAW. /^AN I forget the perfect day ^-^ When, drifted from the world away, I lifted up my eyes and saw The shining cliffs of Mackinaw ? Can I forget the limpid lake, WESTWIND SONGS That mock-a-day that to and fro A busy mirror ran below, And streamed white wonders in our wake ? Forget the long, delicious drive Where freshly I could feel the live Young spirit of old woods survive ? Forget the hillsides junipered, The gloomy hemlock zephyr-stirred, That in the winking waters draw Their aquarelles at Mackinaw? Her tapered pinacles and domes, Her straits beyond the larch-browed walls Afar in glistening intervals, Below the heights of old Fort Holmes ? Ah, no. I cannot reason that Where beauty once in vision sat All life's defacing after-storms Can level its imprinted forms. Each cliff, each curve, each mirrored tree, On tablets of my memory Shall evermore recorded be — Intaglio of that perfect day When, drifted from the world away, I lifted up my eyes and saw The lovely isle of Mackinaw. 92 THE SONGS THE ENGINES SANG. "C^OR days the lordly engines trod To foam the subject sea, And gloried in their power to plod Long paths untiringly. They bore us down the swirling deep Watchful from light to light; Their rhythm, throbbing through our sleep, Soothed us in dream all night. And when we rose, the world made new, To breathe the morning air, Their music on the dancing blue Made all the day more fair. In them a Pilgrims' Chorus woke, A chant serene and strong, Which from our voices did evoke Sweet intervals of song. And, as our comradeships grew warm, And loud our carols rang, It seemed our lips began to form The songs the engines sang. 93 WESTWIND SONGS Words flew to aid the blending tones And make them fit to be The rich, respondent antiphones To heavier harmony. As when, from some cathedral niche, One hears the organ roll, And let its diapason pitch The anthems of his soul, So we, at noon or twilight dim, Heard that great voice below, And on our lips we found a hymn Whether we would or no, — A hymn of comfort and of health That into being burst From the still soul's unmeasured wealth, Unconscious, unrehearsed. And now, amid the city throng, Where smoky vapors hang, Our memory keeps us fresh and strong With songs the engines sang. 94 o DAWN IN CUMBERLAND. UR eager train to northward sped Through shadow till the East was red, When, lo, the dawn's reviving brand Kindled the hills of Cumberland. Our track, along an upland crest, Shone first; but down the quiet West Each faint-lined hollow still was full Of the slow mist's unwinding wool. Penrith lay wrapped in fairy smoke Till winds among the valleys woke And stirred within it, as it seems Reluctant risers move in dreams. Beyond all this was that I saw The lofty brow of stern Skiddaw ? I know not for my heart did hold An image of a gentler mold : Wordsworth, whose name these hillsides own And waters' tender undertone Makes music of forevermore In Derwent, Duddon or Lodore. From those fresh heights rich store have I Of upland lovely thoughts laid by : From the soft mist below them hung New dreams that yet I walk among. 95 THE AVON AND THE THAMES. TF, in all Albion's storied sweep, No other wave were seen, The Avon and the Thames would keep Her romance gardens green. Two silver cords are those she wears, Fast by her side to hold Her book of songs, her book of prayers, As did the dames of old. Fine lyric lore the first book reads, Of woodland wanderings; The other, ancient, holy deeds And orisons of kings. Mitres and crowns continually Allure the chanting Thames; — The Avon lilts to any lea For cowslip diadems. The Thames, at Oxford turned the sage, The prince at Windsor grown, Betakes himself in pilgrimage To Lambeth's reverend throne. But Avon, gentle Avon, goes Far from such Joud renown, Beneath old Warwick's porticos To quiet Stratford town. 96 AT WILMCOTE And there — sweet home of high romance ! — It loiters, giving praise For him whose consecrating glance Sought once its leafy ways. Gold reveries, silken dreams, beside Its marge their glamour blend Till, slipping to the Severn's tide, It smiles an envied end. While Thames and Avon onward sing, Their music's spell shall fall The one's on warrior, priest and king, The other's upon all. AT WILMCOTE. Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, was a girl at Wilmcote, a picturesque hamlet in Warwickshire. OO soft the dusk that Summer night ^ The still moon like a stranger came, And ere we missed the sunset light Made us aware of whiter flame. Fair rose she o'er the steading wall, Poised there as though she loved to hang And let her fairy splendors fall Where Mary Arden walked and sang. 97 WESTWIND SONGS The shadows in the hollyhocks That trailed their crimson bloom along The paling of her garden walks Were shaken with a sudden song : Some bird, a stranger to this sphere, Smitten mid-wing with beauty's pang, Sought easement of his rapture here Where Mary Arden walked and sang. This moon, the same that followed her Among the shining orchard trees Where still her garments seem to stir The ghosts of ancient fragrances ! That bird, the same that died of bliss Long since, but for a sweet hour sprang To life and song a night like this Where Mary Arden lived and sang ! We may not know what sort of song Lured here the prescient nightingale, Or whether it was fair and strong, Or fitted to a homely tale ; We only guess that some far voice From future ages to her rang, And bade her woman's heart rejoice While Mary Arden walked and sang 98 IN HOLYROOD. TN Holyrood, up yellow stair •*• I sought the turret chamber where On Summer evenings long ago The mandolin of Rizzio Made Mary music, rich and rare. And, pausing in the shadows there, Methought some echo of his air Along the halls came ringing low In Holyrood. Ah, 'twas a sighing wind that bare The burthen of old heart-despair, And trembled at the casement so Like dying hope or love in woe, Remembering days when life was fair In Holyrood ! 99 POEMS BY ARTHUR UPSON & GEORGE NORTON NORTHROP. An edition of three hundred and fifty copies printed on hand-made paper. Gray boards. Octavo. A few copies remain. $I.OO net. Louisville Courier-Journal: A volume of most excellent poetry. There is not one of the collection that could well be omitted .... Virile, original, and fully in harmony with the world artistic ? Milwaukee Sentinel: Distinguished by its musical quality and its sincerity. Detroit Free Press: poems. There is a curious, evasive charm about some of them which is very winning to the thoughtful reader who himself possesses feeling. Keith Clark in The St. Paul Dispatch: The book is delightful in its format as anyone would expect who knew Mr. Edmund D. Brooks and his love and knowledge of the precious art and craft of bookmaking. full of whispers and shadows, and suggests poems of deli- The New York Sun: A beautifully and artistically printed volume. EDMUND D. BROOKS, Publisher. OCTAVES IN AN OXFORD GARDEN iff By ARTHUR UPSON Thirty octaves composed in Wadham College Garden, Oxford, early in the Autumn of 1900. They have been richly decorated by Miss Margarethe E. Heisser who has also lettered each page in peculiarly effective imitation of mediaeval illumined manuscript. Miss Heisser's de- signs are reproduced by means of some thirty-five en- graved plates, the edition being limited to three hundred and fifty copies on hand-made paper and twenty-five These Octaves present the rare September phase of life in Oxford, and are full of the repose and charm of one of the most delightful of all classic gardens. $2.50 and $7.50 net. Mr. Upson's poetry is commended by The Outlook for its "grace and ease and a touch of imagination ;" by the New York Times Saturday Review of Books for its "warm and manly feeling for the beautiful ;" by The Catholic World for "a power of subtle insight into the Burton for going "straight to the heart with a simplicity ^ John White Chadwick for "a quaintness and a perfume as of linen cool and lavendered; everywhere a subtle and evasive charm." The Queen of Roumania has recently written the introduction to a new volume of poems by Arthur Upson, the American poet, whose "Songs of Sound Color" have won great praise from European critics. . . . Mr. Upson is a native of New York, and has won for himself a reputa- tion as a talented writer and one of the coming American poets.— Paris Correspondent in the Brook- lyn Daily Eagle. EDMUND D. BROOKS, Publisher. A few Rare Books from the Catalogue AUGUSTINUS. 1. Divi Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis Episcopi Meditationum Libri Duo. 2. Ejusdem Soliloquiorum Anime ad Deum liber fol. 74. 3. Incipit Psalterium Abreviatum per modum orationis (quod S. Augustinus matri suae composuisse fertur) . Item alie orationes post Psalterium fol. 122 b. small 8vo. $75.00. A very beautiful and perfect manuscript of the Fifteenth century. The Meditations and Soliloquies of St. Augustine on thin vellum, 350 pages, written in neat Roman characters by an Italian scribe, long lines, 30 to a page, with nearly 200 small illuminated bound in straight-grained purple morocco, sides and back tooled in silver. It is difficult to over- estimate the importance of these examples of early book-making, and a choice specimen like the pres- ent one is seldom met with at a moderate price. of E-DMUND D. BROOKS, Bookseller, Publisher, Importer. Minneapolis A few Rare Books from the Catalogue THE ANGLO-SAXON REVIEW. Edited by Lady Randolph Churchill (Mrs. Cornwallis West). The com- plete set (the publication having ceased) from its commencement, June, 1899, to its termination, September, 1901. 10 vols. small folio, printed in a sumptuous style on thick paper specially made for the work and illustrated with 51 splen- didly executed portraits in photogravure and 12 plates, one colored, of Brooches, Seals, Snuffboxes, Enamels, Rings, Etc., Etc. London, 1899-1901. Ab- solutely new. $50.00 Full bound in leather, green, red and white, and each volume is a facsimile reproduction of some rare and elegant binding of the middle ages. A The literary articles are contributed by the most eminent living writers. The work will never be reproduced and will, in the future, undoubtedly be difficult to obtain in complete sets. of EDMUND D. Bookseller, Publisher, Importer. Minneapolis A few Rare Books from the Catalogue BYRON'S POETICAL WORKS, With his Life, Letters and Journals, by Thos. Moore. The Favorite Handy- Volume Edition. Original issue. Por- traits and vignettes on steel after Tur- ner and Stanfield. 17 vols. i8mo, handsomely bound in full new olive polished calf, labels of brown morocco, gilt backs, rules on sides, inside bor- ders of gold, gilt tops, by Riviere & Son. Choice set. London, 1832. $60.00. DICKENS (CHARLES) AND HIS IL- LUSTRATORS— Cruikshank, Seymour, Buss, "Phiz," Cattermole, Leech, Doyle, Stanfield, Maclise, Tenniel, Frank Stone, Land- seer, Palmer, Topham, Marcus Stone and Luke Fildes ; by Frederic G. Kit- ton. Printed in a sumptuous style on hand-made paper, with 22 portraits, in- cluding one of Dickens from a scarce portrait by Sol. Eytinge, Jr., and fac- similes of 70 original drawings, now re- produced for the first time, 248 pages of descriptive letterpress and a copious in- dex, handsome 4to volume, bound in art cloth, bevelled boards, gilt top (pub- lished at $15.00 net). London, 1899. $7.50. Only 250 copies printed for sale in Great Britain. of EDMUNT) T>. BROOKS, Bookseller, Publisher, Importer. Minneapolis 9 X UCLA- Young Research Library PS3113 .U8w y &WHIIVW